Woodcock Madness

A few of the nine American Woodcock I saw on Thursday in Prospect Park. Or, in this one’s case:Outside the park. On Vanderbilt St. in Windsor Terrace. I herded this one off the street. A stalking cat gave me the side-eye for doing so.The bird landed in the only patch of open ground around. But then the door behind it opened and a dog and walker emerged from the apartment building. There’s no rest for the winged.

Reports from around the city tallied dozens of dazed and confused and probably hungry birds. March is when they migrate. They seem to have been blind-sided by the storm. The Wild Bird Fund had 35 of them in the other day. I saw one snagged by a Red-tailed Hawk, and heard of another being so captured, as well as one being jumped by the Prospect Park Goshawk.

We just disturbed one in our backyard here near the Palisades in northern NJ. It didn’t go far and we can still see it in our neighbor’s property nestled down under a shrub. Not something I ever expected to see here!

Heard from a friend that he had one in his Brooklyn backyard the other day. I think they can show up practically anywhere. Another friend coming to dinner the other night said he saw one flying over 39th St in my neighborhood, a truck route of unprepossessing nature.

I’m leading a bird walk in Green-Wood tomorrow for the Brooklyn Bird Club. The wind tonight is coming from N/NW, so I don’t think we’ll have a windfall of Labrador twisters or mud bats, as American Woodcock are also known, but you never know… http://brooklynbirdclub.org/event/green-wood-cemetery-2/ Here’s one from the archives to whet your timberdoodle appetite.

Aldo Leopold, (1887-1949) who is considered to be the father of wildlife ecology in the US, wrote that the woodcock’s mesmerizing sky dances were “a refutation of the theory that the utility of a game bird is to serve as a target, or to pose gracefully on a slice of toast.” (quote snitched from Cornell Lab of Ornithology website)